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City of Heroes MMO Leaps Tall Buildings?
Decaffeinated Jedi writes "This week, GameSpy is serving up a variety of articles regarding Cryptic Studios' upcoming massively multiplayer superhero PC roleplaying game, City of Heroes (following up on its December 2003 preview). The preview offers hands-on impressions of the game, a look at the origin and ongoing adventures of Kingblade (an in-game character created by one of the editors), a roundtable with the developers, several screenshot galleries, and more. City of Heroes is currently in beta and scheduled for released on April 27, 2004. Will it join the ranks of Freedom Force in breaking the legendary superhero game curse? Only time will tell, true believers!" There's more info on this NCSoft-published game at COH Stratics and the official site.
Anyone care to explain what Freedom Force is to a poor soul stuck behind a filtering proxy server at work?
In Republican America phones tap you.
9. ModMen
8. 10,000 Natalie Portmans
7. In Soviet Russia, the world saves super heroes!
6. The Legion of "BSD is Dead" Trolls
5. Cowboy Neal Terra-Man
4. Cmdr Taco
3. Adm Burrito
2. Captain Goatze
1. Major McBride, always on the lookout for his arch foe The Penguin.
This game truly should have been done with a mor exaggerated or comic-book-ish style of art.
I see the screenshots, and it just looks to me like an x-men movie would have looked if they kept the blue and yellow spandex. Visually, it seems disjointed. The models are too close to photorealism, the effects too snazzy for the costumes and subject matter to work.
At the very least, I'd de-emphasize the comic-booky style costumes - but i'd prefer the art more stylized: more exaggerated characterization, exaggerated heroic posing, a less sharp image, kinda ham it up a bit.
maybe it's a minor quibble - but I think it's fairly important to establish mood and genre. Spandex-style superheroes are not mainstream culture the way black leather is (xmen, matrix). And spandex just doesn't look right in a more photorealistic setting.
I'm not saying the graphics are -bad-, they just don't fit the game. Either the visuals are presented too 'realistic' for a more casual gameplay, or the gameplay and visuals are too realistic for the costumes.
Consider World of Warcraft -- the thing oozes consistent style with their professed gameplay. It all seems to fit together. Then look at the screenshots for City of Heroes: undoubtedly well crafted, a beautiful engine - but the heroes, their poses, and half their powers just look out of place.
Maybe it'll be a fun game, but you gotta wonder if the conflicted focus carries through to the gameplay.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
So lemme get this straight...there are no bad guy players? Everyone's good? That sucks! The idea of being a Dr. Octopus or Riddler or Lex Luther or something and trying to orchestrate crimes without getting caught, not to mention trying to kill the do-gooders, would have been a blast! I think they're seriously missing out on a demogrphic here.
--trb
"
One social feature of the game that deserves special mention is the "sidekick" feature. In a typical massively multiplayer game, high-level characters can't really effectively adventure with low-level characters -- if your friends develop their characters past you, you might as well kiss them goodbye.
City of Heroes combats that problem in a way that fits in with the title's "all action, no hassle" gameplay. If you want to team up with a high-level character, you become that character's "sidekick." All of your existing powers are souped up, almost to the level of your mentor's, so you can participate in all of the high-level missions. The experience a sidekick gets will only be proportional to his/her level, but at least nobody gets left out of the action. It's a fun way to make sure that everyone can enjoy the game, and it fits in perfectly with superhero fiction."
Anyone that has played MMO's will appreciate this feature. I like to play with my wife on Dark Age of Camelot, but I find that it takes her about 10x as long to XP her toons up as me, unless I spend all my time PL'n her. This is a way for me to play at my pace, and include my non-junkie friends in the adventures without having to feel like I need to slow down or them get discouraged they are left behind.
This game looks great, I will definately give it a try.
..or is this going to play like a very low rent illiterate version of Astro City?
I'm still waiting for a good console MMORPG. A video card to support this probably wouldn't be too bad, but I've yet to see a breakout MMORPG for console. Unfortunately, I think that'll have to wait until the next gen of console games, I've a feeling that console MMORPGs are holding back for things like PS3s.
Popular culture is far more than youth culture friend. The 'leather clad' look my attract the teens and tweens, but there are an awful lot of thirtysomethings and fortysomething playing MMOGs, and we remember the superhero's of our youths.
I'm sorry to say that the more I read about this game, the worse and worse it sounds. It looks like the only thing "massive" on Cryptic's hands is a massive failure. There's this little problem of no PC villians. 'Nuff said. I'm brushing off the "it would be too hard to do" or "they looked at it" excuse--that is no excuse. It wouldn't have been the first game to have a sucessful system with evil PCs.
** A Sketch a Week **
http://www.sketchplease.com
I think it's fairly obvious by now that the major publishers suddenly woke up sometime in late January and said, "Hey, there is no market for MMOs!" Microsoft canceling Mythica and Ubisoft dropping Uru and Matrix Online are demonstrative of the sudden realization that MMOs are not the goldmine they were once perceived as.
Personally, I hope City of Heros does well, if only to further the cause of good superhero games, that is (assuming that it is good). The post by weasel to this story makes a good case for a wasted opportunity by the makers of City of Heroes on not creating a highly stylized and "mood-inducing" game, though. Also, the this-game-is-simple angle might work, but I wonder how many people will justify paying $49.99 + $X/month for game that seems to lack depth. Simplicity as an extension of a way to capture that ever-elusive mainstream market surely didn't help either Uru or the Sims Online. Moreover, my guess is that in terms of polish and accesible design, any game that's out now probably won't stand much of a chance against Blizzard's World of Warcraft.
My guess is that City of Heroes barely missed the cut. I can't help but wonder that if City of Heroes were anything but almost finished, NCSoft, or any smart publisher, would have pulled the plug on it.
I can't tell if you're arguing with me, or not.
On a personal asthetic level I agree with you - I'd prefer they make the game more like the comic books of yore - with the outrageous costumes, the goofy cliches, stylized architecture, etc. I would not fault them however, for going for a more 'realistic', dark-and-trendy, approach.
I just wish they would be consistant with one approach or the other. Their game is somewhere in between and it just doesn't look right.
They are keeping the spandex-style outfits but the rest of their game looks straight out of the new trendy 'realistic' book (the models, the environments, the posing, the colors, etc)
Everything aside from the costumes emphasizes plausibility and realism over exaggeration and heroism. It conflicts visually.
Again, I'd prefer they make it look like a comic book -- maybe not cell-shaded, but certainly exaggerated, 'heroic', colorful, dramatic, etc.
What they have now, is comic-book-ish textures on 'realistic' models. Animations that are kinetically sound, not heroic or exciting. The settings are architecturally plausible rather than dramatic.
The heroes in this game wear the same clothes as comic-book heroes - but they don't look like Superman. They don't brood like Wolverine, Hang like Spidey, fly like Superman, strike-a-standing-pose like Captain America, or drive cars like the Batmobile. When they punch it looks like you or I swinging - not like Hulk Smash.
The entire game, with the exception of the costumes represent the photorealism and 'plausibility' trend. I'm just saying the two elements conflict. You can't do both. It doesn't say 'grey, gritty, realism', nor does it say POW! 'We're Superheroes Dammit!'(pun-intended).
It tries to do both, and accomplishes neither. Regardless of which way would be 'better', simply picking one or the other and being consistant would be better than what they have.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
Ever read the DC Comic Kingdom Come? Essentially, all the good Superheroes have left the scene or gone a little nutty and the world is overrun with Superheroes without self-restraint or the black and white morals of the Golden Years. They've killed off most, if not all, of those you could easily identify as villains and become what they're supposed to be fighting.
In the book, Superman rounds up a bunch of the old gang and builds a superhero prison to hold the most questionable ones. It's a really good read (and I'm a Marvel guy generally) and I thought of it immediately when I heard there were no villains.
I agree with your analysis of the graphics style. I am quite surprised that this game did not take advantage of the Cell Shading techniques used in some recent games. It is clear that cell shading techniques give the graphics a more "comic book" style look. So many people have complained about cell shading in games where they want photo-realism, and now we have a game that could not be more perfectly suited for cell shading, and they go the way of photo-realism...
City of Heroes is a huge disappointment. Not sure how many of you have actually followed its development, other than looking at the occasionaly screenshot, but it's been a constant story of 'that's too hard.'
The developers have had MMORPG experience. Instead of using that experience to improve themselves and innovate, they are using that as an excuse NOT to innovate, "Our experience shows that it's not a good idea to even try that."
Every major decision that a MMORPG could make has been answered that same way. Can I do foo? 'No, that causes too many problems.' Did you make a solution for X? 'X is something that will ALWAYS happen in MMORPGs.'
I thought at first that it seemed like they just weren't trying. Then it seemed more like they were actively NOT trying. Every choice they made seemed to be calculated to make life easier on the developers instead of making a better game, or a better experience for the player.
I started to become disinterested.
Then they started releasing their video clips. That's was finally chased me away. In a game about SuperHeroes, they showed a clip of a person who's super powers were...a glowing sword, and shooting fireballs. They took this person and went into a dungeon, and started wiping the floor with henchmen (goblins.)
They had taken a normal fantasy MMORPG, hadn't changed one ounce of formula, simply put a different skin on it. It was a deathblow to any interest I ever had in the game.
Suggestions for a better game:
1. Super Villians. i.e. PvP. What could be more natural? Good Guys vs Bag Guys.
bah...I'm not interested anymore...I'm not going to make a list.
I agree, it's a great feature. Although after reading through the 'features' of the game and their stat system and the 'archetypes' I have to come to the conclusion that it's the same as any other genre of game. In fact, there's really nothing innovative about it at all with regards to other MMORPGs. In fact, it looks lacking.
Archetypes is nothing more than a fancy word for 'class.' Now I've played DAOC before (nothing else) but from what I remember from that game, here's the breakdown for their 'archetype' system.
- The Controller. This is the Bard type. This character mezmerizes or holds characters in place. He does some buffing. This is about it. Aside from the fact that the Controller probably doesn't sing.
- The Tanker. This is the warrior character of the group. It has lots of hps, can do some damage but is mostly around to shield the rest of the group from attacks. Big whoop.
- The Blaster. This is the Mage of the group. Lots of damage, specializes in ranged attacks, lots of damage, low hps. It even says they can look like Drow Elves in the Gamespy article, which is quite funny to me because i mean, it's a goddamn elf mage!
- The Defender. Please. Paladin/Ranger character. Good at defending, some buffing abilities. Might as well give it some shield and scale armor.
- The Scrapper. Paladin, maybe Rogue/Thief character? It also fits into the Warrior stereotype, not much else here.
Now granted, These 'archetypes' are basically it.
Let's look down the road. You're a superhero, you fight monsters daily, not much else. You get powerups every so often, you can fly (so can everyone else at this point in the game). You can't build any new weapons apparently, there's no player vs player, sure xping with friends is probably much more interesting with sidekicks but it seems to me that you're sort of cheapening the game by making a sidekick that powerful.
In the end, I just don't see how this game differs enough to make it interesting.
Or rather, the interface sucked when you had to control more than one character. Play Superhero League of Hoboken; that's a good superhero game.
Rob
Here is the 10th most popular Slashdot superhero:
JonKatwoman
I'd *love* to have a super-hero game universe under my control, but I won't play online with other people.
I was really excited and interested in this game until I found out it was a monthly-fee-scam kind of thing. It'll turn into yet another low-positive-feedback-by-levelling thing, I'm sure, and it'll be set in a fairly generic universe. No licenses (would it really be that hard to snag, say, the Malibu or New Universe license from marvel, or Wildstorm's world?)
What I was hoping for was something along the line of NWN - anyone can run a server, build his world and offer no-fee play. Heck, I would've even taken a single-player game like Freedom Force, if I could make my own game.
So we'll have this generic world, where it probably won't be possible to be "Deena" from Powers or, based on the archetypes they list, someone with non-obvious powers like Longshot. Would Batman - world's greatest detective - even be any fun to play in an MMO world where muggers are probably the equivalent of rats and spiders?
One of the knocks I had against Freedom Force was that it was relentlessly upbeat and really forced one into a Lee/Kirby-style semi-whacky flawed-but-noble hero mode. It captured the comics of 1963 very well, but there wasn't room for anything else; no "normal guys" or detectives or anti-heroes or cosmic bad-asses. No shades of grey, either. I want to play in a world where I can be a regular bank robber or Green Arrow or Captain Marvel (any of 'em) or Silver Surfer and have all of them be fun and challenging.
Anyway, I think there's a million and one ideas for something besides Stupendous Man and his sidekick Super Lad, contending with a million and one clones of Wolverine, which is what it looks like I'll get with City of Heroes.
I think I'll wait another decade for the day I can finally build Jokertown and play with the people I choose to play with.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
So lemme get this straight...there are no bad guy players? Everyone's good? That sucks!
That is generally the problem with MMORPGs: false economies. They put roles in the game that humans don't get to play. That is, clearly the game will support bad guys and probably super-villains, but (jokes on you!) *you* don't get to play them. That does indeed suck.
Another big false economy is the spawn, and related spawn camp, aka an unbalanced environment. It sounds like this game will essentially be the same, where thugs will appear out of nowhere. Where the citizens are constantly in peril, yet they never leave nor do prisons ever fill up despite your efforts. Somehow the whole situation persists despite being massively unbalanced.
A lot of online games won't go anywhere if they don't have a balanced system in place right from the beginning. Even already popular games like EQ get tiresome for players when they realize they're kept from interesting roles that are reserved for NPCs, or when the item they fought so hard to get can be had for cheap when someone figures out how the system just drops it into the game under a certain condition.
Tried Final Fantasy XI?